


Incomplete

by kronette



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Back to Earth, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-08
Updated: 2011-08-08
Packaged: 2017-11-17 03:58:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/547376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kronette/pseuds/kronette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is actually a title; it fit the mood I was trying to create. Set during <i>Back to Earth</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Incomplete

His feet dragged along the deck plating. Visiting the memorial garden was always hard, but he made himself do it out of a sense of duty.

He’d been unable to get Kris back to her own Dave, and for that, he was truly sorry. He knew how it was, losing the person you were closest to. Losing that special bond you had, the jokes only you knew, the talking-without-saying-anything ability you developed.

He’d had that, with Rimmer.

He kept losing it.

No, that wasn’t completely true. He’d pushed Rimmer away that first time, off to become the space hero, Ace.

He’d watched Rimmer grow from a spineless, self-absorbed smegging git into a semi-decent, cowardly lump of a man who would, on occasion, do something brave and heroic. He’d lived on a world of his own clones for 600 years. He’d survived a world of his own subconscious, for smeg’s sake! Even ten years later, Dave shuddered at the memory of battling Rimmer’s inner horrors.

He’d spent countless hours wondering if he’d done the right thing by sending Rimmer away. All he knew was that hearing that Ace was dying and looking for his replacement, he _knew_ that Rimmer could do it. He’d wanted Rimmer to succeed. He’d wanted Rimmer to have that life of the Space Corps hero he’d been denied in life. It was his second chance, and if anyone in the smegging universes deserved a second chance at happiness, it was Rimmer.

He sighed and shifted the book he carried to his other hand. He read to Kris, an obligation to give back to her the culture and sophistication she’d lost with her Dave. He absently toyed with the tattered paper he used as a bookmark. He should have done it while she was alive, but he’d been too caught up in his own loss to truly feel hers.

His steps slowed as he reached the entrance to the observation port. Inside, a tall, lanky, not-as-skinny-as-he-used-to-be hologram stood with his back to the door, head bowed.

Rimmer hadn’t known that alternate Kris. He hadn’t known the Krissie from their original universe. Rimmer hadn’t known the original Rimmer, either, the one who became Ace.

This Rimmer had been reborn from nanobots with a peculiar mix of original, smeg-filled Rimmer and a prank-loving younger version of Dave. Dave still didn’t understand it, and Kryten hadn’t been able to come up with an explanation that made sense. The nanobots had gotten everyone and everything else spot-on, down to the last Chunky bar, but they’d altered Rimmer. He still had his smeggy moments, true, but he’d been fun to pal around with, pulling pranks with Dave that even Petersen and Chen might have balked at. He’d been willing to take risks to climb his way up the success ladder, including outright cheating and bribery, on occasion. Even prison hadn’t slowed him down. Nothing had, until the metal-eating virus.

Rimmer’s head lifted, as if sensing Dave’s presence.

Dave bit back a sigh as he walked into the observation port. The carpet made his approach almost soundless, but his heart beat out the rhythm for him. As he neared, he saw Rimmer’s back straighten impossibly straight, muscles tensed impossibly tense, and even though he couldn’t see, knew Rimmer’s jaw was clenched so tight that the muscle was jumping a tune to match his heartbeat.

When he’d asked Rimmer, after catching him down there the first time, why he bothered, Rimmer had sneered down at him disdainfully. “It’s about respect, m'laddo, something you know clearly nothing about.”

That explanation hadn’t made sense, but he’d never brought it up again. His steps slowed as he approached the altar, knowing what Rimmer would do and hating it all the same. It was always the same.

Rimmer gave his special salute and turned smartly on his heel, military-precise. His stiff nod to Dave was the only acknowledgement that another living person was in the room. Dave never turned around, but he heard the quiet thuds of Rimmer’s boots on the carpet fade in the distance.

Dave sighed again and settled down on the floor, curling his legs underneath him. His fingers scratched at the book, opening it to the bookmarked page. He unfolded the well-worn paper, only then looking up at the pictures. “Hiya, it’s me,” he said unnecessarily. “Sorry it’s not my regular day to visit, but we had a…thing.”

Since they had _Red Dwarf_ back, they weren’t overly concerned about derelicts or planetoids, just the unending plod towards the Milky Way galaxy. But once in a while, just as they had two days ago, they encountered a GELF or simulant ship that either had to be avoided or fought against. They’d sustained some damage to the hull on the starboard side, but the nanobots had repaired it within a day. Everything was back to the same dreary, unending days on end, so he resumed his visits, which he didn’t want to admit were becoming samey and dreary.

He cleared his throat and skimmed the letter, though he not only knew it by heart, he’d studied it so much that he knew when the pen had pushed too hard in desperate fear; when the hand writing it had gotten too shaky and had to be held to calm down frayed nerves.

“’Lister,’” he began, “’I’m not even sure why I’m writing this. It’s not like you don’t know why I’m leaving. You made me do this, become the smegging git of myself, made me see that we’re the same person even though I didn’t want to. So I’m leaving it on your head, Lister. Whatever happens to me, it’s your fault. All your fault. If I die a sniveling coward crouched under a bed as a crazed husband looks to lop off my dangly bits, it’s on your head. If I die a hero, it’ll be on you.

Thank you. For believing that I could be something more. For giving me the chance. For being my friend.

And if you ever, ever show this to Kryten or the Cat, I’ll come back and rip off your balls and force them down your throat, wait until you toss them up and then refeed them to you. Just so we’re clear. 

~~Arnold~~ ~~J. Rimmer, BSc, SSc~~

Your friend,

Arnold.’”

Dave wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, refolded the note and tucked it before the first page. He cleared his throat again as he turned to the page he’d left off. “Okay, Krissie, we were at the part where Frank saved Harriet from Gypsy beggars, yeah?” he skimmed down to where the words looked familiar and began reading aloud.

In the doorway watching him unnoticed, stood Rimmer. His face was wet, even though he’d heard the letter the other Rimmer had written to Lister dozens of times. It broke him apart, knowing how much the other Rimmer meant to Lister, but how that meaning faded with each incarnation that Lister encountered. By his count, he was number five. A hologram of a nanobot-regenerated version of a hologram who had left to become the latest Ace Rimmer who had actually been a hologram of a time-changed human Rimmer who blew himself up to become a hologram again who had been the original hologram to the original Arnold Rimmer. They seemed to keep either dying or leaving Lister, and each one took something of Lister with them when they went. _He_ was left with a shell of a human being, and no idea how to make him better.

He shook his head and gave a silent instruction for the projection unit to restore him to normal. The tears vanished and the redness faded. The despair and naked longing remained.

The End


End file.
